The present disclosure relates generally to the field of automated non-destructive inspection (NDI) of aircraft structural elements such as airfoil-shaped bodies, and more particularly to automated NDI apparatus that is coupled to and travels along an airfoil-shaped body having a relatively short chord length (such as a rotorcraft blade, an aircraft propeller blade, a winglet, a projectile fin, an aircraft horizontal stabilizer, or other types of blade component).
In order to non-destructively inspect airfoil-shaped bodies such as blade components, it is known to manually remove the blade components from the aircraft and then manually perform the inspection functions. Removal of blade components from an aircraft is cost intensive. With rotorcraft blades, for example, the time spent removing, transporting, re-attaching, balancing and trimming the blades can be significant. Some helicopters require that the blades be removed and inspected every 50-75 flight hours, resulting in a dramatically reduced mission capability of the aircraft.
In contrast, one system for non-destructive inspection of blade components during in-service use comprises an apparatus that crawls along a blade component and inspects for damage, without requiring costly removal, rebalancing, and re-installation of the blade component. The problem is that the root end of most blade components is complex, and the on-rotorcraft scanning element/method used by inspectors cannot adequately address the root end inspection without part specific scanning hardware.
Inspection of the root end of blade components (such as rotorblades) is currently done by hand, with the operator holding a probe and watching a screen for indications of damage. The drawbacks are that this is labor-intensive, relatively slow, does not provide repeatable comparable data, and is not suited for on-rotorcraft inspections, thereby requiring costly and time-consuming installation and re-balancing. A scanning bridge that travels along the span of a rotorblade can perform an automated inspection on a rotorcraft or on a bench, but only with respect to the large airfoil section of the rotorblade. The root end is currently done by hand. Also, the scanning bridge gets in the way of the inspection near the root end, so the apparatus is usually removed and turned around to do that inspection. And, the shape of many rotorblades near the tip can require hand-held NDI, because the scanning mechanism does not adequately cover the geometry of every tip.
The provision of means for inspecting the root and tips of airfoil-shaped bodies as part of the general inspection of the acreage would be advantageous.